The Ghosts You Leave
by RenaRoo
Summary: There is a game that is played around the cave that is difficult to explain. The game is that, in the most exasperated hours of stress, when the things that have happened on Gotham streets are too hard to express, they begin to compare notes. They compare what they have done and what they have seen.


A/N: So, in the 90s and 2000s you could not go many issues into a Batbook without someone hallucinating and casually talking to someone's ghost and that always felt like such a weird convention in comics that went unremarked upon. Especially if you were uninitiated to it, I don't know what you'd think about Jason's ghost just doing cartwheels and cheering on Tim Drake. So. Here's a fic lol

Disclaimer: Batman and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics.

**The Ghosts You Leave**

Cassandra Cain has spoken to ghosts before.

There is a game that is played around the cave that is difficult to explain. At least, it's more difficult to explain than most of the others are willing to put the effort toward. The game is that, in the most exasperated hours of stress, when the things that have happened on Gotham streets are too hard to express, they begin to compare notes. They compare what they have done and what they have seen.

There isn't supposed to be a winner in these kind of games, but there always _is _one regardless.

"Demons," Damian remarks. He's receiving stitches from Alfred who is curt in his actions and silent as stone. "Child stuff, really. Certainly you lot would know."

"Honest to god," Tim adds in the dead of night. He still has a concussions from the previous night, isn't allowed back out. "He's Frankenstein. Well. I suppose book accurate it's _Frankenstein's monster. _But who's book accurate anymore?"

"Witch _boy_," Stephanie chuckles, still combing out a sewer substance from her hair that is unspeakable. It's only after what felt like hours of intently hosing and dabbing it out of the gash in her forearm. "I don't know if that's the right term. Warlock or something right? But if he _calls himself _— ba-dum-dum —"

"This meta, right, and he looks right into your soul," Duke says lowly. There is a haunted gauntness to his face as he traces old scars. "And when you look back, something's put there… but it's not new. No, I guess it's not _put _there. He lets something _out _of you and it's _already there_."

No matter how it's said, with jest or quiet contemplation, Cassandra sees the tiredness in her friends and siblings' eyes. It's not an age that matches them, it's infinitely older and more worn. She is overwhelmed with empathy for their plights.

But she is still a teenage girl, and there is a moving desire inside of her that wishes to participate as well.

"I talk to them," she says, pulling at the already torn fabric of her newest suit. It's cut with a blade that did not reach her flesh due to speed and flexibility she easily dismisses in the moment.

There are four pairs of eyes drawn to her as she speaks. It's both what she wanted and not at all at the same time.

"Talk to who, Cass?" Stephanie presses with genuine curiosity.

"You," Cassandra says without hesitation. "You had died." She paused, then added with some accusation, "And left me." With a breath, she eases back into sitting. "Then you came back. We talked. You told me what I needed."

Stephanie bristles in place. This is not a time she likes to speak on, not a moment she likes to remember. But even as she opens her mouth and utters a noise, nothing can come out, it seems. It's hard to talk about dying, especially when you're the one doing it.

"Yeah? Well, after that whole dying thing with Shiva, _I _was the one talking to _you! _And I'll have you know, you were a _total chatterbox _while in that coma!" Stephanie defends. "What was I supposed to do with that pressure? _Not _fight one of Shiva's minions and defend your dead honor?"

"I didn't get honor," Cass counters.

"Well, after being a badass that night I have plenty to share, so I'll lend you some of mine!" Stephanie responds with a smirk and wink.

The boys were in complete silence, looking at the two of them like they were foreign bodies floating over the stoop in the cave. Even Alfred had raised an eyebrow, gathered his medical supplies, and carried along without comment. Which seemed to say more than anything the rest of them had said the whole night.

"That's weird, dude," Duke broke the silence.

"I used to talk to Jason," Tim announced, out of sync with Duke's message. "I mean, before he was… back. I did it all the time. I would spend hours after patrol just… here in the cave. Bruce gone. And I'd look at his case and just… ask the tough questions. Look for inspiration… wonder if I was doing the right thing."

Cassandra curled her nose slightly at this. "You… asked _Jason_?"

"He was very supportive," Tim defended. "Gave great advice… made me feel… okay with what I'm doing. Like it was really making a difference." He sniffed and rubbed at his nose with the back of his glove. "Imagine the shellshock of going from that to… well. Multiple decapitation attempts."

Duke refocused his concerned energy toward Tim, which immediately made the third Robin prickly.

"He's gotten…. He's still _Jason _but he's not tried to kill me since the batarang thing," Tim argues the unvoiced words.

The heaviness of it hangs in the air as Duke and Damian seem to look between the three of them.

"I… may have spoken to my ancestors," Damian finally acknowledges. After a betrayed look from Duke, however, he is quick to amend, "I didn't see them wearing a sheet and saying _boo, _Thomas, it's simply in the sense that… Well, with the Year of Blood and all that, there is a lot I have witnessed and my witness… is expected. It's not hallucination."

Cassandra frowns at this distinction. She doesn't shift in discomfort like Stephanie or grow red in her ears like Tim, but she searches Damian's features. It's difficult, even with her keen understanding of body and movement, to determine what he is trying to distinguish between their cases.

"I don't know what you guys saw or talked to," Duke says finally. "On my tough nights, I talked to the other Robins. And now… I've still got Riko or Izzy or… Well, I talk to you, Cass. About… the stuff we've been doing together."

Taken aback, Cassandra nods. She has not spoken to any ghostly figures lately, not since the Outsiders.

It isn't something she's noticed before now. But it _is _curious.

"That is because you are not lonely, Master Duke," Alfred speaks up, surprising everyone from his corner in the medical bay as he cleans tools and restocks dressings. "And unfortunately, this is lonely business… when one chooses to make it so."

The teens glance back to each other as the butler continues his work. They're silent again, but in each other's companies.

After all, it had not been long since each of them had uttered the immortal phrase _for Alfred _in that very cave.


End file.
